Yes, dear readers. If you've read my previous article, you can officially connect the remaining dots. "Kinds of Kindness", the latest pairing of Emma Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos, is officially the first film that I walked out on. The reasoning for that distinction however has more to do with circumstances regarding my tight schedule rather than the film itself. I obviously go into more detail in the previous article.
For now though, let's focus on my thoughts on what I saw of "Kinds of Kindness", which should've been at least 90 to 95% of it. Again, previews took forever and cost me my patience for finishing the rest of this. From what I did see though, I can say that your ability to get into this film will depend on what you think of each individual story being told. You see, "Kinds of Kindness" is essentially an anthology film composed of three segments.
Each segment stars most of the same actors with occasional variance. The stories in question do share some overlying themes with each other, hence the film's ironic title. The first section follows a business man (Jesse Plemons) who obeys every order that his boss (Willem Dafoe) gives him, until he's asked to kill someone for him that is. The second story involves a police officer (Plemons) whose missing wife (Emma Stone) has been rescued, and yet in the officer's eyes doesn't resemble the person that he once knew.
As for the third portion of the film. Well, if I didn’t have the Internet to confirm it for me, I couldn't tell you what this section was about. That's because it feels like this section kept changing its focus every 5 minutes. It started off promising enough with two individuals (Plemons, Stone) seeing if this woman (Hunter Schafer) can bring people back from the dead. But then, it abandons that plot within a few minutes and goes somewhere else. These two go to various places to analyze some people of interest to see if they have a special talent.
Then, this section decides to give Stone's character an ex-husband to add conflict to whatever narrative this is. There's also some conflict between Stone and the organization she's trying to please. There's a waitress who claims she has what our central characters are looking for. If you couldn’t figure it out, the last section is obviously when I walked out of this film due to my time constraints. What we have here with "Kinds of Kindness" is something of a mixed bag.
The first two sections share much in common in terms of their quality. Both are very efficient in terms of storytelling and editing, and yet they're a little too rushed for my liking. Each of these two narratives are missing the necessary build-up, depth, and detail required to make us believe the developments in their stories. This holds especially true in the second narrative.
We're barely given a reason why the cop suspects his wife is another person. We're left in the dark as to how this cop started developing cannibalistic behaviors and we have no clue why he's doing what he does. As for the wife's sporadic obsession with sex, I have a hard time thinking any normal woman would be interested in that after being lost for a certain period of time. This feeling is all the more relevant considering what's in the news in this day and age.
The first narrative is slightly more clear, as far as character motivations go. But again, some of the plot developments still feel abrupt and unearned. It doesn’t make sense why, after confessing that he basically needs to make a life change, the business man would go back to getting his previous lifestyle restored. There's underlying dark humor dispersed in this section that provides much needed personality.
This business man's failed attempts at meeting women with the same desperate routine is an apt conversation starter. Quirkiness aplenty in this specific narrative, with characters expressing gratitude over a broken tennis rack as a gift. The cast does what they're supposed to in each of the film's three sections. The dark humor of the narratives do come through, even when the stories themselves don't make complete logical sense.
The first narrative is the best of the three, and even then, it's only alright. The second narrative was weaker, but at least I could follow the basics. The last piece completely lost me as it kept dragging on and on towards a journey to obliviousness. "Kinds of Kindness" isn't a terrible film by all means. But it is a disappointing experience and a long one at that. 2 hours and 45 minutes is nothing to overlook after all. I should know.
I decided to be generous with my final score, considering there's far worse content out there that I watched all the way through. I know it sounds strange to say that I wanted both less and more from a film after seeing it. Hopefully, my explanation of why with this review at least provides some clarity on the matter. So take this with a grain of salt.
Final Verdict: 6/10
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